A love letter from a house spider
Please forgive me, but we will never meet. If I were to crawl close enough to you, you’d scream and probably kill me. I’ve seen you do it too many times to count, though you usually never deliver the blow yourself, it’s always the other one.
I wish you didn’t react with fear first. How lovely it would be to properly greet you after having spent a year by your side already.
My first memory was squeezing through your window. Outside was too cold, but your room was cozy. Your house was warm, and you were dealing with flies. I built my first web on the windowsill, but I learned quickly anything near your bed was meant to stay clean.
I learned your routine so my webs would stay intact, and you wouldn’t see me; keep us both safe and comfortable. I know when you’re gone, what rooms you usually frequent and at what particular times of day, and when you’re supposed to be sleeping. You’ve been struggling with that last one, haven’t you?
Your bookshelf is also off-limits, but as long as you don’t see my silk during the day, I can explore the different worlds you’ve explored by just looking at words on paper. That is something I wish I could share, the capacity for your language. I only know your expressions, I only know your body language, and still, you are unpredictable sometimes.
I often like to nuzzle myself between the trinkets you’ve decorated the shelves with. You and I both like tiny, beautiful things. The more they shine, the better.
But when you cannot sleep, you come to the bookshelf too. I scramble to the top, beyond your reach, and watch as you pick a book just based on its spine. The books that tower over me are small enough to be picked up in just one of your hands. You always sit in the same cushioned chair, legs tucked under you, hair tied up.
You turn on the dim lamp beside you and open the book, seamlessly continuing from the exact spot you finished at the night before. I creep closer to the edge and watch, watch as you turn page after page until your tired eyes grow heavier again.
Please forgive me once more, but my favourite nights are the ones where you are too tired to trek back to your bed. Instead, you wrap a blanket around yourself, lean your head against the back of the chair, and doze off. These are my favourite nights because your bed is off- limits, but this chair is not.
I crawl, not wanting to leave a string you can see, and climb up the chair to your arm. I find the book and nestle between the pages as if I could soak up the knowledge, the experiences too.
I admire you, how peacefully you sleep despite one of your biggest fears being so close. I know you’d scream if you saw me, but I also have been with you in these intimate moments, I know your heart deep down is pure.
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